


at night we face what lies hidden in our hearts

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Familial Abuse, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 12:24:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5539868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: “The year Sirius gets burned out of the tapestry he’s just happy to be free and away from his parents and their bigotry. The marauders think he’s fine until one night in December when it’s fuckin cold Sirius has his first nightmare since being disowned. It’s about his parents forcing him back home, and Sirius needs some air so he climbs onto the roof to looks at the stars. about half an hour later Remus finds him and yells about how it’s freezing and drags him inside and comforts him.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	at night we face what lies hidden in our hearts

**Author's Note:**

> First Wolfstar fic! Thank you to ilikemycoffeelikemysoul-bitter on Tumblr for the prompt and thank you to queer-dog-boys on Tumblr for being my beta! (Any mistakes left are most likely mine)

The room was noisy. All kinds of voices echoed all throughout it, some angry, some pleading, some cold. It was like a kaleidoscope of sounds, one where all of them turned into each other and changed and morphed and evolved, then came back twice as threatening.

A woman bent over him. She was blurry, out of focus, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get her image to sharpen. She was shouting. A stream of mostly incoherent insults rolled out of her mouth, but he could make out some words here and there, like muggleborn, or disappointment.

Suddenly, her voice turned ice-cold, and it was like Sirius could see the frost seeping in. Her words echoed off the walls, clearer than ever, “Or we could send Bella to make you come back home. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

At that moment Bellatrix appeared in the doorway. Sirius’ first reaction was to wonder how that was possible. She hadn’t learned to Apparate yet, none of them had. He quickly realised, however, that he had bigger things to worry about.

She strode over to him, grinning maniacally. ‘Hello there, dearest cousin. What do you suggest we start with today? Oh no, don’t answer – I know exactly what to do with you. I know just the spell.” And with that, she whipped out her wand. He tried to move away further, but he couldn’t, his back was against the wall. His parents laughed maniacally like some kind of comic book villains, and she was moving closer still… She pointed her wand at him, opened her mouth and –

Sirius woke up with a shock. The dormitory seemed to shake on its foundation, and he felt nauseous, the kind of nausea you get when you land on the ground flat on your back after a hard fall. Suddenly, he felt closed in; his dream was still incredibly vivid, and it was all coming back to him at once, he needed air now or he would –

He attempted to calm himself down with breathing exercises (Lily had taught him, having learned it from her mother when she was little). One-two-three-four-five-six-seven in, one-two-three-four hold, one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight out. Repeat. Okay. Still bad, but better. At least he was able to control himself now.

He got up to look for the map and found it under Peter’s bed. In the progress, his fingers brushed against something fuzzy, which he definitely didn’t want to think about. Actually, on second thought, at least now he had an idea of what was causing their dorm to smell more damp than usual. After making sure everyone was asleep, Sirius opened the door as softly as he could - damn you, creaking hinges - and set out for the roof of the castle.

Once there, he was able to relax a little more. He closed the trap door behind him, pulled out the blanket he’d grabbed from his bed in a hurry, and made himself comfortable. Not many people knew about this shortcut. The Marauders had discovered it back in their third year. They suspected Filch used it from time to time, but since he had other things to do in the castle most of the time and they had the Map, they still felt mostly safe there.

He shouldn’t be bothered by nightmares like this anymore. They were only lame recreations of the real thing, the last summer he’d spent with them, and if he had survived that then surely a dream shouldn’t be scary, right?

That summer had started out to be one like all others before. His parents were horrible as ever; their hexes and jinxes stinging as ever. Regulus had, predictably, been as slient as ever. He remained quiet as usual while witnessing all of it, but at least Sirius could count on his brother being doted on even more now that he had become the Slytherin Seeker, which kept his parents somewhat more preoccupied.

Sirius had been somewhat bitter about that. When he became Beater for the Gryffindor team his parents hadn’t cared, but then again, they probably hadn’t from the second he was sorted in Gryffindor in the first place.

Not long after that, he decided he’d had enough. What was he doing in this house anyway? He was sixteen, which meant maturity in Muggle England. Not in magical England, but he’d just have to make do, somehow. He wasn’t going to stay here, not when there was a better option where he would never have to see his parents again. That was the additional protection the Muggle world provided. His parents would rather die on the spot than ever set foot there.

He wouldn’t tell Regulus about his plans. He’d tattle, and would probably find out soon enough anyway. Something stung him while thinking about this, but he chose to ignore it.

The next morning, Sirius had shrunk a bag of clothing, stuffed it in his pocket, charmed his window open - that, by some miracle, wasn’t charmed shut with a spell too advanced for his Alohomora - climbed through it, and jumped out as quickly as possible. Once on the ground he quickly changed into Padfoot, ran a few miles away from the house, then sat there debating what to do next.

He could use someone’s Floo, if he found a closeby wizarding cafe that had one, or he could call the Knight Bus. That wasn’t much of a problem. The thing was, what was he going to do next? Would he return to Hogwarts? Rent a room in the Leaky? Go to James’ house?

Go to James’, he decided. They could help him with whatever he was going to do next and contact Dumbledore if necessary, because having been raised magical without any contact with the Muggle world, he’d have to start somewhere magical after all.

And so he searched the pockets of his robes until he found a few Sickles and some Knuts, and called the Knight Bus.

When he arrived at James’ place, however, things had gone differently than he’d expected. After explaining how he got there, and most importantly why, Mr and Mrs Potter shooed them out of the room to have a conversation between the two of them, and James took Sirius up to his room.

“What do you mean, you’re going to Muggle London?” James had asked, confused.

“I’m going to build a living there. Get a job, whatever. It can’t be that hard.”

“You don’t have any experience there! Were you expecting it to be like the magical world? Because you’re wrong, mate, way wrong. You won’t even be able to get a job at most places if you can’t prove to them you’re legal and in school. No one wants to hire a dropout and you can’t exactly say you’re going to a magical boarding school in the middle of Scotland.”

“I don’t know. My uncle Alphard offered me a place to stay long ago. I might live with him.”

James bit back, his voice getting louder as he spoke, “Do you know how to contact him? What if he turns out to be just as much of an asshat as the rest of your family? Have you even arranged anything before you went and left the house? No, you haven’t.”

Sirius wondered why James had picked this moment to turn into a “responsible young adult”. They were all valid points, though, and he tried not to show how he was panicking.

He was also angry, though. James didn’t know what living with the Blacks was like. He’d had a loving, supportive family pretty much all his life. Sirius envied him a lot sometimes.

“You don’t know what it’s like! You’ve never even had the faintest feeling your family might hate you! You love your parents and don’t even have to doubt if they love you back, because you know they do!”

“At least you should’ve thought this through more before leaving! How are you supposed to pay for your own expenses now? Don’t think you’ll still have access to the family vault, and you won’t find a job straight away!”

Sirius was just opening his mouth to shout back a reply, when Mrs Potter came in. She shared a few whispered words with James, and then they simultaneously turned to him.

“You can stay here.” James told him, anger vanished all of a sudden. “Dad agreed, and we have a spare guest room.”

Sirius tried to protest, but this clearly wasn’t up for debate. The Potters would have none of it. “You’re practically a brother of James. It’s only natural for you to come live here,” they’d said, and “We couldn’t possibly leave you in Muggle London to take care of yourself. We would be worried sick.”

So he ended up staying there for the remainder of the summer, and James’ parents had told him he was welcome for next summer, too.

And he was fine, he guessed. As fine as he could be, anyway. He had fun: they made campfires, went swimming, and they had even gone out to Muggle London a few times. They visited the flea markets and James bought him a leather jacket along with some posters despite all his protests.

They’d also visited Muggle London at night, and he’d enjoyed himself immensely. Muggle pubs were so different, and it seemed so much more vivid. Muggle girls were all over him, joking that he looked just like Danny Zuko from Grease, especially with that leather jacket. He didn’t get it. James just chuckled.

When they went back to school, they told Remus and Peter together what had passed that summer. They’d had a conversation about it, and the subject was dropped from then on. Things were okay. Things were fine. He was fine.

But then the nightmares began. He’d lost count of how many nights he’d woken up screaming, or sometimes just silently crying, calling for James in a state of half-alertness. He’d always felt bad about it the morning after, though, especially when he saw James come to breakfast with black circles under his eyes, but James always waved it away with a simple “That’s what friends are for, right?”

In short, James Fleamont Potter was a godsend, but also only human, and therefore Sirius felt he couldn’t bother him tonight. It was okay, though – the night sky was doing wonders for calming him as well.

Until he heard the trap door opening behind him. Oh for fuck’s-

“I heard you leaving and followed you up.” a deep, slightly scratchy voice said. Remus. “It’s freezing out here. Come back to the dorm.”

“It’s not that cold,” Sirius said. It was pretty cold, but he didn’t want to be closed in again. “I can manage. I’ve got a blanket,” he pointed out, gesturing to the blanket.

“The blanket is made for indoors use. You’ll catch a cold. Follow me back to the dorm.”

“It’s not any warmer indoors because this castle’s isolation is crap. I won’t.” Fuck. It was really cold.

“Come on. Now. This is not up for debate.”

“Were you always this bossy?” Sirius snapped.

“Not unless people are stubborn. Hurry up.”

“No! I want to stay here!”

Remus walked over to him. “Listen,” he said, “I know you’re feeling trapped. I know you want to get out. But you’ll get sick and then you’ll have to spend even more time inside. Look, your fingers are red already.”

Sirius looked down at his hands. He supposed his fingers did feel a little stiff.

“Okay. Sure.” He tried to sulk, but found he didn’t really have the heart to. Remus didn’t have to come up here. He could’ve just stayed in his bed.

Remus spoke again after they got back to the common room as Sirius lit the fire.

“Sorry about that. I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t wake James. He’s been looking tired and I didn’t want to bother him, and I was awake anyway.”

“No, it’s okay. He does seem tired lately, it’s why I decided to let him sleep. He’s had enough sleepless nights because of me.” He laughed weakly. To be quite frank, he just wanted Remus to leave right now. He was a perfectly good friend, but he’d just wanted some alone time to come to himself.

“It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t feel guilty about asking people for help.” Remus said softly.

“As if you follow your own advice.” Sirius snapped, and immediately felt bad about it. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I feel like shit right now. I appreciate that you’re here, though.”

Remus nodded awkwardly, and they sat together in silence for a while. It was an uncomfortable silence, though: it was the kind of silence where you can’t just sit but you have to do something. So Sirius decided to speak up.

“Do you feel conflicted as well? Because you want to ask for help but you don’t want to burden people with your problems because you feel like they’re getting sick of you?”

“I do,” Remus said, after being lost in thought for a bit, “I really do at times. Especially during what you mentioned, when you became Animagi just to help me. When you told me, I didn’t know whether to be thankful or to be angry, because I was so amazed by what you did just to help me but I felt like I had to be telling you not to risk your lives and your careers for me, but then I would seem ungrateful, but if I would accept the help I was selfish. If you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sirius replied, while wondering where he’d picked up that Californian-sounding “yeah”, he was British, for fuck’s sake. “James’ parents have been so helpful, and I wasn’t sure if I should take their help, but it feels like a greedy thing to do. I feel like it would be… right… for me to set up a life for myself.”

“You don’t have to feel like that,” Remus said. He moved his legs from a cross-legged position to laying them out in front lf him before speaking again. “You didn’t choose to be born into a family like that, then why would you have to be the one to take up responsibility for it? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I guess. I did have a choice, though. If I had been like Reg- Regulus, I mean, then I wouldn’t have to find a solution. If I were like him maybe it would have been easier, you know?” His eyes were beginning to tear. He stared at his feet while blinking and hoped that he wouldn’t get choked up.

“I know, but you didn’t, not really. It all started when you were sorted into Gryffindor, didn’t it? The Sorting Hat sees who you really are. What your real personality is, what your real hopes and dreams are. You can’t help it if you’re not cut out for the role of Muggle-hating bigot, to say it crudely.”

“Thanks.” Sirius paused. “I know I didn’t. Sometimes it seems like I did have a choice. Sometimes it seems like I could’ve asked the hat for Slytherin and spent my whole life pretending to be different. It would feel wrong, but I could’ve.”

“But would you be happy?” Remus asked thoughtfully. “Would you feel at peace with yourself, knowing you were deceiving everyone?”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t ever be able to relax. It would feel wrong…At least I’d be safe.”

“Physical safety isn’t everything.”

“Coming from you, that means a lot.”

“Ha-ha.”

They sat and stared into the fire after that. Sirius felt relieved. He hadn’t meant to tell him so much, but Remus was incredibly reassuring, in his own way. Not the kind of reassurance James offered, with his almost smothering hugs and his kind words, telling you that everything would be okay, and that special talent he had where he somehow made you actually believe that it would be.

Remus was calm, and made you feel like you could say everything you wanted to without being judged. It never felt like he was berating you or putting up with you.

Remus actually had a lot of good qualities, despite the fact he himself always denied them. He was kind, but he could be snarky when the situation called for it. He was good at explaining things. He always tutored them, after all: James asked Lily one time but she didn’t want to anymore after she saw their dorm and claimed to be repulsed by it. “Come to my dorm or don’t get tutored,” she’d said, continuing, “and no, Potter, that’s not an invitation. Don’t make me use my pepper spray.”

Remus would make a great teacher, Sirius realised. Way better than Snape, anyway. He’d heard from Lily that Snape was thinking about studying Potions and becoming a teacher at Hogwarts, but then again, it was incredibly easy to be a better teacher than Severus Snape.

He’d prefer to think about Severus Snape as little as possible, though, and so he decided to close his eyes and try to sleep a bit. He did somewhat miss the physical reassurance he usually got from James, though.

“Remus? Do you think you could come a little closer?”

Remus shrugged, and scooted over. “Sure.” He stopped when their legs were touching, but there was still some space between the rest of them. “Like this?”

“Yeah, that’s alright. Thanks.”

Now somewhat at ease, Sirius laid back and closed his eyes. He could hear Remus breathing beside him, the regular rhythm calming his thoughts a bit. He concentrated on it until he finally fell asleep.

He woke up with his head on Remus’ shoulder. Blushing, he sat up quickly.

“I had to wake you up because it’s seven thirty. If we stay here any longer people will notice we’re gone.” Remus whispered.

Sirius hummed something in reply. He still wasn’t entirely awake yet. “How long did I sleep for?”

“About four hours, I think. I let you sleep because you needed it, and kept watch to make sure we didn’t oversleep.”

“Thanks.” He smiled somewhat sheepishly.

“Also.. thank you. For being there for me. I needed that,” Sirius continued, “and you didn’t have to put up with me so thank you for doing it.”

“It’s not a problem.” Remus said, then leaned in.

Which one of them had been going for a hug and which one of them had been going for a kiss on the cheek, Sirius didn’t know. Maybe they both tried a cheek kiss and it backfired miserably. All he knew, though, was that they awkwardly bumped lips before moving away. He could feel the blush spreading on his cheeks, and Remus was also faintly pink, though that could’ve been the heat from the fire.

“Well. Um. Let’s try that again, but a proper hug this time.”

This time, they did actually hug. Remus was no James - he was too bony, too tall, and didn’t hold on tight and long enough, but it was still reassuring.

Sirius, though, decided they could also try something else again, and after the hug he placed his hands on either sides of Remus’ mouth before pressing a kiss to his lips. He stood up and quickly walked to the dormitory.

“You coming?”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are immensely appreciated :) 
> 
> (Tumblr: alrightsirius)


End file.
